The Protector (2003) (52 page)

^{Until now, Cavanaugh's wet suit had been comfortably warm. Now the sweat that squirted from his body raised his temperature so much that he felt as if he were in a sauna. Almost dizzy from the heat under his wet suit, he risked taking his right hand off the shotgun for the few seconds he needed to pull down the wet suit's zipper, exposing his chest. The effort made no difference.}

^{In Karen's basement, he had thought he'd endured the full force of the hormone, but now, as the smell became almost unbearable, he understood that he had no idea how powerful Prescott's weapon could be. His legs threatened not to support him. His stomach felt simultaneously scaldingly hot and polar-cold. His pulse was so fast, he came close to fainting.}

^{Part of him wanted to roll into a ball and pray for this nightmare to end. Another part compelled him to pivot in an increasingly rapid circle, pointing his shotgun anywhere and everywhere. His body heat misted the faint green images of his night-vision goggles. Surrounded by every imaginable threat, seeing through fear-narrowed vision, he spotted a man with a pistol aiming at him from the corridor that led to the master bedroom. He came within a millisecond of pulling the trigger, then realized that the man with a pistol was merely a shadow, that this was how the Rangers and the SWAT team had reacted.}

^{Cavanaugh's only advantage was that he'd suffered the hormone's effects and knew what to expect. Even so, as the pungent smell became strong enough to make him taste bile, he heard unnerving noises that he realized were pathetic whimpers forcing their way from his throat. The heaving bellows of his lungs made the whimpers come and go, come and go, each time stronger, building to a scream that he repressed by racing along the corridor to the master bedroom.}

^{Charging inside, he didn't dare think, didn't dare hesitate or second-guess himself. The huge bedroom had an arcade video game next to a luxurious reading chair. A large flat-screen plasma TV was mounted to the wall at the foot of the bed, a cabinet of electronics next to it. To the right of the TV, a sliding door led into a closet. That afternoon, Cavanaugh had looked into the closet and seen Prescott's designer jackets hanging on a rod, cedar shelves of expensive tank tops, T-shirts, and sweaters behind them.}

^{Now he shoved a bureau from the side of the room and rammed it into the closet so hard that he broke off the pole that supported the jackets. He yanked down the electronics cabinet and the plasma TV, shattering its screen. With the closet blocked and the wall at the foot of the bed fully exposed, he pulled earplugs from his bag of shotgun shells and put them on. His shaky fingers could barely do the job. The pungent smell was so overpowering that he came close to bending forward and retching. Cursing, he stepped back, raised the shotgun, and fired at a spot three feet from the ceiling. Nearly knocked back by the recoil, which his shuddering body could barely support, he was gratified that the almost-severed plastic shell separated from its base when the gunpowder detonated. Like a miniature rocket, the main part of the shell and the buckshot within it roared toward the top of the wall, blasting apart on impact, creating a fist-sized hole, through which the buckshot burst like shrapnel. An eerie pale light was visible through the hole.}

^{Cavanaugh yanked the pump on the shotgun's forward grip, ejecting the remainder of the empty shell, chambering a full one. In a fury, he fired just below the ceiling again, aiming toward an area three feet to the left of the first hole. Another miniature rocket seemed to blast a fist-sized hole in the wall. And another. Each hole revealed more of the eerie pale light. The Remington 870 held four shells in its magazine and one in the firing chamber. Cavanaugh rapidly discharged all five, blasting more holes in the wall, working his way downward. The odor of cordite helped to mask the stench of the hormone as he fumbled for more shells and forced his trembling fingers to shove them into the slot under the shotgun. Despite his earplugs, he heard muffled screams behind the wall just before he started shooting again.}

^{He moved the pattern of the fist-sized holes lower, soon reaching five feet down from the ceiling. Prescott screamed more fiercely behind there as Cavanaugh reloaded again and fired, the holes showing even more of the light. The bedroom was filled with a haze of gun smoke. Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire. Now Cavanaugh lowered his aim to three feet above the floor. Prescott's screams came from down there, where he'd taken cover as the descending movement of the blasts pressed him toward the floor.}

^{"You had me believing you'd gone!" Cavanaugh shouted. His fear and the earplugs caused his voice to sound as if it came from a disorienting distance.}

^{"Then I spotted the miniature TV cameras outside the house!" Cavanaugh pumped the shotgun and blew yet another hole in the wall, keeping it three feet above the floor, forcing Prescott to huddle in panic down there. Wood and plaster flew. More of the glowing light was exposed.}

^{"So many cameras!" Cavanaugh's shout was primal.}

^{"Cameras need monitors! So
where the hell are the monitors?"
As Cavanaugh blasted yet another hole in the wall, the hormone made his bladder want to let go.}

^{"Where's the walk-in closet that ought to go with a bedroom this huge?"}

^{Cavanaugh pumped the shotgun and fired. The glow of the monitors streamed through the increasing holes, revealing where they were stacked on shelves against the far left side of the enclosure, away from his shots. "It couldn't have been hard to put up a wall inside the closet! Something you could pivot like a door and lock on the other side!" Again Cavanaugh pulled the trigger. He knew that the neighbors would hear the shots and phone the police. He didn't care. By the time the police arrived, his business would be finished.}

^{"What did you do, use the van from the parking garage to bring in construction supplies?" Again, Cavanaugh's shotgun roared. "Your neighbors wouldn't have realized you were dividing the closet! Shelves for the monitors! A ventilation duct connected to the main system! A cot! Preserved food! A portable toilet! Like the first time I met you! You were in a hiding hole then! You're in a hiding hole now!"}

^{Cavanaugh pulled the trigger and blasted the middle of the wall. So much light from the monitors now glowed through the holes that it compromised his night-vision goggles, forcing him to raise them to his forehead. "Everybody was so impressed by the huge TV on the wall, they didn't realize you were hidden back there! A couple of days from now, when the police stopped searching for you around here, you could have left the house after dark! You could have stolen a car and been in San Francisco before anybody realized the car was missing! Nobody would have made the connection with you, especially if you remembered to wipe your fingerprints the way I taught you!"}

^{Cavanaugh's hands and face dripped with sweat as he pumped out a final empty shell and started to reload.}

^{Abruptly, he was stunned by a chaos of bullets erupting from the ravaged wall. Wood and plaster flew as an assault rifle fired an automatic volley from the other side.
Roberto's AR-15, Cavanaugh
thought, diving to the floor. His earplugs only partially muffled the stuttering clamor. Chunks of the wall spewed across the bedroom, bullets rupturing the headboard and the wall behind Cavanaugh. Lamps and picture frames shattered. Amid the widening gaps in the wall and the increasing glow of the monitors, Cavanaugh saw the staccato muzzle flashes.}

^{At once, the shooting stopped. Cavanaugh thought he heard a curse, the scrape of metal, the struggle to release a jammed cartridge. The next instant, what was left of the wall burst apart, Prescott shrieking, his muscular body ramming through the cluster of holes. His upper torso was bare, except for the Kevlar vest he'd pulled over it. The glow of the monitors reflected off the sweat on his powerful-looking arms and shaved scalp. Even in the dim light, his eyes blazed. The sharp contours of his jaw and chin radiated the fury of a cornered predator. Throwing the assault rifle while he charged, he leapt over the broken TV and dove toward Cavanaugh. The impact was so great, Cavanaugh felt air being slammed from his lungs. The Kevlar vest's rigid structure reinforced the solidity of Prescott's body, stunning Cavanaugh to the point that his mind turned gray. Then Prescott's powerful hands clutched Cavanaugh's throat, sending a further shock through his nervous system. Breathless, Cavanaugh felt the bones in his throat bending inward, about to snap. He slammed his hands across Prescott's ears so hard that Prescott screamed in pain and fell back. Gasping for air, Cavanaugh rolled toward where he'd dropped the shotgun. But Prescott kicked his hands away and got to the shotgun first, pulling the trigger. Even with the earplugs Cavanaugh wore, the noise of the shell rocketing past him was overwhelming. The shell hit the arcade video game, the cylinder of buckshot exploding on impact, blowing the machine into pieces. Because Prescott was unfamiliar with the mechanics of the shotgun, he took too long to pump out what was left of the cartridge, giving Cavanaugh time to charge. The collision sent the two men crashing against already-shattered French doors. Plywood nailed to the doors' exterior gave way, Cavanaugh and Prescott smashing through onto the brightly lit terrace.}

^{The floodlights hurt Cavanaugh's eyes as Prescott scrambled back and raised the shotgun.}

^{"It won't do you any good." Cavanaugh's voice wavered, fear coursing through him. The strong, cool ocean breeze surged into his mouth and up his nostrils. "1 had time to reload only one shell before you crashed through the wall."}

^{"Right," Prescott said.}

^{Cavanaugh undipped the Emerson knife from the top of his wet suit and thumbed open its blade. He took several deep breaths. The clear air wouldn't take away the effects of the hormone, but it stopped them from getting worse.}

^{"Dummy, you brought a knife to a gunfight," Prescott said.}

^{"An old joke."}

^{"But I'm the one laughing." Prescott pulled the trigger.}

^{Nothing happened.}

^{"School's back in session," Cavanaugh said.}

^{As Prescott gaped at the empty shotgun, Cavanaugh removed the plugs from his ears. He heard sirens in the distance.}

^{"How'd you like to learn about knife fighting?" Cavanaugh lunged with the knife.}

^{Prescott jumped back.}

^{"Part of it has to do with balance." Cavanaugh lunged again.}

^{Prescott dodged to the side.}

^{"Part of it has to do with dexterity." With dizzying, eye-blinking speed, Cavanaugh flicked the dark blade back and forth, up and down.}

^{Prescott raised the shotgun as if about to swing a baseball bat.}

^{"And part of it has to do with knowing which areas of the body to cut, depending on if you want a quick kill," Cavanaugh said, "or a slow one."}

^{Prescott stood his ground. He inhaled violently, unintentionally warning that he was about to act. Then he charged.}

^{As Prescott swung the shotgun, Cavanaugh ducked, nicked Prescott's right arm, and skipped back before Prescott could swing again.}

^{Prescott looked shocked that his arm was bleeding.}

^{The sirens wailed closer.}

^{When Prescott glanced in their direction, Cavanaugh darted forward and nicked Prescott's other arm.}

^{Furious, Prescott swung the shotgun again and gasped when Cavanaugh ducked it, then plunged the Emerson knife through the Kevlar vest into Prescott's stomach.}

^{Weak-kneed, Prescott stumbled back in shock, staring down at the bloody knife Cavanaugh pulled from the bullet-resistant vest. Blood trickled from the bottom of the vest, crimson spreading down Prescott's sweatpants. Prescott's eyes widened in denial, communicating that he couldn't believe what had happened was possible.}

^{"The wound's too shallow to kill you for a while," Cavanaugh said. "You've still got a lot of bleeding to do."}

^{"How did ..." Prescott's question was a gasp.}

^{"Surely a smart guy like you can figure that out. The vest's made of polymer fibers. It's designed to resist only the blunt force of a bullet."}

^{"The knife's sharp enough to slip past the fibers?"}

^{"You pass the quiz." Cavanaugh jabbed again.}

^{But Prescott had used the pause to regroup. Instead of lurching farther back, he surprised Cavanaugh by throwing the shotgun and charging, pinning Cavanaugh's arms to his side before Cavanaugh could do anything more than nick him again. With his hands clasped behind Cavanaugh's back, Prescott flexed his muscles, tightening, squeezing.}

^{Cavanaugh felt as if metal coils were around him, contracting ever tighter. He couldn't move his chest, couldn't work his lungs. Staring at Prescott's frenzied eyes a couple of inches away from him, he suddenly felt light-headed. The floodlights on the terrace seemed to dim. His arms were so tight against his sides that he couldn't use the knife. He was so close to Prescott that he couldn't raise his knee to kick him in the groin.}